Seneca, East Newton win district volleyball openers

Tuesday

Oct 29, 2013 at 12:05 AM

Less than a week after hammering Cassville in two sets, the Seneca volleyball team came away with another sweep of the Lady Wildcats at the Class 3, District 11 Tournament on Monday, but this time it wasn’t nearly as easy.

Levi Payton

Less than a week after hammering Cassville in two sets, the Seneca volleyball team came away with another sweep of the Lady Wildcats at the Class 3, District 11 Tournament on Monday, but this time it wasn’t nearly as easy.

The Lady Indians squeaked it out 25-23, 25-20 on Monday.

In the first set, Cassville had the upper hand late and appeared poised for victory with a 23-20 lead, but the Lady Indians stormed back with five straight points to fight them off. The Lady Wildcats wouldn’t go away in the second set, either, but the Lady Indians maintained a two to three point lead through the majority of the set.

“We showed up kind of sluggish like we thought we’d be able to walk through it and we weren’t,” Seneca coach Cheryl Butterfield said. “We’ve got to play. We started off really sluggish. In the key moments we came back and did what we needed to do.”

Perhaps it’s a lesson learned for the Lady Indians, who must come fully prepared today when they take on the district’s top seed in Reeds Spring (27-4-1) at 5 p.m. at Monett High School. Butterfield said that just winning this game was a huge accomplishment for her team, though they feel they have more to accomplish.

“This was one of their early goals,” Butterfield said of her team. “They’ve not made it past the first round in a number of years. One of their goals was to just push past the first round. This was the first goal, now we have to get ready for Reeds Spring and get through goal two.”

Cheyenne Neuhoff led the Lady Indians with six kills. Molli Cooper turned in 10 assists. Tia Martin finished with eight digs. Mikalee Kime had four blocks.

Jade Null led Cassville with five kills. Lindsey Nolan had two assists. Cydney Curnes recorded four digs.

Seneca improves to 15-14-2.

In another game, East Newton swept Aurora in two sets and will advance to face Hollister in the semifinals today at 6:30 p.m. Stats for the Patriots’ game were not provided at press time.